Corporate strength guarantees Pebble

The negative emphasis on foreign multinationals is cynical coming from a man who makes a living on invested capital. Is all that capital in domestic companies?

Regardless of who develops Pebble the resource will still belong to the people of Alaska. Most of the dollars generated will stay in Alaska in payment for labor, utilities, equipment, and under state law as rentals, royalties and taxes: The Lake and Peninsula Borough will tax improvements to the extent of millions of dollars every year. Perhaps 10 percent of the proceeds will end up in London--if all goes according to plan.

Contrary to Gillam's assertion, mine jobs are not short-term. Giant porphyry copper mines keep on going for decades or more. Bingham Canyon in Utah, with less copper than Pebble, has passed 100 years and plans for decades more. El Teniente in Chile began to produce in 1905 and is currently designing mining plans up to the year 2070. As a resource Pebble is in the same class of giant porphyry deposits. Based on geologically similar deposits Pebble will go through several stages -- open pit and underground -- at least for many decades.

If the fishery was in danger the concerns might be different. Gillam cites copper concentrations of three or four parts per billion as impairing salmon's navigation system. But the natural waters within the Pebble deposit area are several times that concentration already. The elevated natural metals are not something that began yesterday or even thousands of years ago as at least a mile of the Pebble deposit has been eroded and flushed down ancestral drainages.

Material presented by Gillam about tailings is similarly misleading. Pebble silicate tails will not be behind a water storage dam one-half mile deep but in a tailings impoundment with a maximum water depth of less than 100 feet of fishable water. Because many of the world's giant porphyry deposits, including Pebble, lie around the seismically active periphery of the Ring of Fire, tailings impoundments are designed to meet stringent seismic codes. If Pebble adopts an initial block cave underground strategy air quality concerns go away and fugitive dust from surface facilities is controllable and always subject to permit.

Granted there are always unexpected consequences from large projects, Pebble's management has been as careful and thorough as any mining project ever undertaken in Alaska. It is important to have the corporate strength to solve problems as they arise. Anglo has an enviable record in doing what they say they will.

Giving the benefit of doubt to Robert Gillam, assuming his concerns are real, and not NIMBY ones, why not sit down and examine the technical and corporate issues raised? As a member of the Truth About Pebble Board I would help facilitate such a session.

Charles C. Hawley is a geologist-geochemist with more than 40 years' experience in Alaska. He is a board member of the nonprofit group Truth About Pebble.